Youth group dares Aquino to bring Tubbataha crash to UNESCO, other int’l fora

YOUTH group Anakbayan challenged President Benigno Aquino to raise the Tubbataha incident before the United Nations, in order to punish the US Troops for all the atrocities they have committed under the guise of goodwill.

The President is currently on a trip for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“If he really plans to strengthen our economy, he must put our interests first,” the group said in a statement.

The US Troops have a long list of sins against the Filipino people, dating back to the Philippine-American War. The latest ones are no different: the rape of our women, the degradation of our environment and natural resources, and the infringement of our rights, Vencer Crisostomo, Anakbayan national chairperson, said.
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The most recent is damage inflicted by their coralsweeper, the USS Guardian, on the Tubbataha reef which is a sanctuary to diverse marine life. Coral take years and years to form, but it took one puppet president’s carelessness and to wreck it all. The reef is a World Heritage Site and must be protected at all costs, and so do our national interests.

“If Mr. Aquino had the sincerest concern, he would not have hesitated to condemn the US Navy, impose stricter sanctions, or abolish the visiting forces agreement,” he said.

The ship had no permission to tread that part of our seas where it is now stuck, yet the US Navy had to block our authorities and insists on conducting their own probe of their own offense. Perhaps they also want to effect their own absolution.

Crisostomo said “it is imperative that the President bring this incident before the UN. The US Navy would not have the nerve to be as aggressive, reckless and bossy, if Mr. Aquino stopped being the US’ Asian lapdog and started standing up for the interests of his people.”

However, not once did he file a complaint against US intervention in the country’s political, economic and other affairs. The presence of the US military in our country continues to sow terrorism especially in the bases we had supposedly acquired back.

Who would forget cases such as that of Nicole’s rape by US Marine Daniel Smith? Or the toxic wastes US ships have been dumping on our seas, threatening sea life, the livelihood of our fisherfolk and the very health and lives of the people residing near them?, he asked.

“Only the most inhuman person would do that. Only the most inhuman father would allow that to be done to his child,” he said.

Aquino as the head of a nation, continues to implement the very agreement which grants immunity to the US Troops for their sins: the VFA or the visiting forces agreement.

Crisostomo said “he betrayed public trust when he said that there is no hurry and we need not worry about the Tubbataha incident, amid possible further damage the US Troops may make.”

Not to say that we must sympathize with China, which protects similar capitalist interests as America. But the Aquino government is more keen on riding a war that is not ours. Aquino chooses to start a petty fight with China but stays silent on the crimes and violations US Troops have done on Philippine soil, right under his watch, he said.

The USS Guardian, symbolic of the US troops, is here to guard its country’s sake, and not ours. The US denies the Philippines protection and will not come to its defense in dispute with another country as China, as the US perceives China as a potential billion-population market more than an economic rival.

But Aquino continues to implement “mutual” defense policies unfair to the Philippines, as wished by his US masters. It is not enough to fine the US Navy for the extensive damages to our Tubbataha coral reef, or file a case of illegal entry against the world’s finest war heroes who do not even know how to discern faulty chart from not.

The group dared Aquino to challenge the real terrorists, the US Troops.

The group said that as long as Aquino remains a puppet of Uncle Sam and the laws lax on Americans who violate our sovereignty, our national treasures and human and natural resources will be exploited and ravaged over and over.